Bala Summer Market moves back to the Shield

BALA — After two years of trying to make a go of it at the Bala Sports
Park, the Muskoka Lakes Chamber of Commerce has agreed to move the Bala
Summer Market back to the Precambrian Shield parking lot in central
Bala.
The market has been in existence for 12 years, held on Mondays throughout the summer months. The first two years the market was located on Bala Falls Road, which was found to be hot, dusty and cramped.
It then moved to the Precambrian Shield parking lot where it was so successful, pedestrian safety issues arose when cars began parking along Muskoka Road 169 as the market parking filled up. The answer was to move the market out to the Bala Sports Park in 2010; however, after a second year of decreasing attendance, vendors have had enough.
At a public meeting held last week, the message was loud and clear: move the market back.
Last year, the Bala market saw about 300 people a day, or 3,000 for the season, almost half as many as attended at the Precambrian Shield location, said Kailey Luker, event and tourism consultant for the Muskoka Lakes Chamber of Commerce.
“It’s definitely something we noticed this year, attendance was down,” said Luker. “(The sports park) is just not as visible obviously. It’s a great facility. It’s an underutilized park. It’s got all the accessible facilities that we need: washrooms, a nice grassy lawn and tons of parking, so we were really hoping it would work. It had great potential, but just noticing the lack in customers last year, we knew that we might not be able to continue another year at that park.”
Vendors had already decreased from 35 at the Shield to only 15 to 20 last year, its second year at the sports park. Vendors listed the benefits of moving back to the Shield parking lot, including “more consumers, more customers, more visitors, more visibility, easier access for people on boats, and people walking throughout the town,” related Luker.
Downtown merchants had also noticed negative results, saying they found the downtown wasn’t as busy once the market moved out to the sports park.
“After receiving feedback from the public meeting, we realized that it should be moved back to the Shield,” said Luker. “We took it back to our board, the board made a motion to instead of requesting approval from township council to utilize the sports park, we’ve changed it to request the Shield again.”
The chamber hopes to solve the pedestrian safety issue at the Shield lot with help from the District of Muskoka and the township to have increased “no parking” signage posted along Muskoka Road 169.
“We want to ensure that this is a very safe event,” indicated Luker. “That is one of our No. 1 priorities.”
The request for the sports park was to be presented at yesterday’s Township of Muskoka Lakes committee of the whole meeting, where the chamber expected to meet with approval from the councillors, who have recently voiced the same opinion.
Another suggestion made by a vendor at last week’s public meeting was to change the name of the event from Bala Summer Market to Bala Farmers Market to attract more interest. The chamber board agreed to make the change, but gradually so as not to incur the expense of all new signage in one year.
Unlike the Port Carling Farmers Market, the Bala market does not require vendors to be from Muskoka or the immediate surrounding areas and they do allow resellers. As a result, having sufficient produce at the market to justify the farmer’s designation was not a concern. Both changes are seen as positive moves for the future of the market.
“We’re looking forward to improving the attendance and improving the amount of visitors coming into Muskoka Lakes and into Bala for the market,” said Luker. “And hopefully, it will improve commerce within our business community here.”